“A compound in classrooms to celebrate,
As one writes, reflects, notes, or calculates:
A session’s board-chalking
Can supplement talking
Through cases of calcium carbonate!”
The 15 April 2023 limerick commemorated a chemical compound commonly found in academic spaces: calcium carbonate, as part of chalk.
“A compound in classrooms to celebrate, /
As one writes, reflects, notes, or calculates…”
I have been through decades of classes at this point, as a student and a teacher, so I have seen chalk employed for a variety of purposes in a variety of settings (for a variety of years). The utility of chalk and a chalkboard for documenting a process— solving an equation, balancing a reaction, diagramming a sentence, outlining a story— is particularly pronounced. While classroom chalk can also sometimes consist of other compounds, calcium carbonate is the focus of this particular poem, as the final line will reveal.
“A session’s board-chalking /
Can supplement talking /
Through cases of calcium carbonate!”
One of the reasons I rely on the chalk/chalkboard combination in my teaching is that I can pace myself more reasonably, providing clear context for each step of solving a problem rather than going too rapidly toward the answer. The “session’s board-chalking can supplement talking” and ensure I do not rush ahead. (“Cases of calcium carbonate” is a needlessly complex phrasing for “boxes of chalk”!)
As with many aspects of day-to-day academic life, the origins of both using chalk with a chalkboard and erasing chalk with a chalkboard eraser are more complex than I had previously realized. A past exhibition in the Smithsonian highlights the importance of the chalkboard in math education and its use in the USA since the early 1800s, although similar uses had been established around the world for centuries previous.
Chemphasis 